𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐑 [𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘪 𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳]

chapter 2

you were wrenched into consciousness by the biting sting of ice water being poured over your head. sitting up with a gasp, you furiously wiped at your face in a useless effort to try and escape the chill.

"oi," you hear a deep voice say to your right. you turn to find familiar green eyes staring at you, filled with a heavy emotion.

eren sits in a worn leather armchair. it's a piece that stands out ridiculously against the other elements in the room. the flimsy wooden floorboards, thinned from a lifetime of heavy-footed soldiers running through the halls. cobwebs stuck in the corners that have long been abandoned by the spiders that spun them.

sometimes your mind wandered and you thought about how much easier life would seem if you were anything other than human. if you were small enough to hide in the tiniest cracks in the plaster walls or if you could simply choose to take flight and soar easily over the monsters that hunted you.

"oi," eren said, louder this time. you forced your attention towards him, noticing the now empty pitcher held loosely in his grip. asshole.

"you've been asleep for too long, it's time to return to the real world whether you like it or not," he rises to stand and lazily stretches his arms above his head, letting out a deep sigh.

"besides it's boring without anyone to pick on. mikasa is about to fucking strangle me," he meets your eyes but you glance away and stare at your lap.

you felt the heady weight of guilt and sorrow settle comfortably back on your shoulders, weighing you down like an anchor.

eren seems to sense your shift in emotion and moves, coming to sit gently on the empty stretch of bed next to your blanket-covered legs.

you hear him shift, leaning forward as his hand comes to rest on the back of your neck, the familiar warmth of his palm easing your head to rest in the crook between his neck and shoulder in a gesture of comfort.

his collarbone is sharp and uncomfortable against your forehead, but the feverish warmth he radiates does something to ease the chill that's made a home within your bones. you don't cry.

"who found me?" you eventually ask, breaking the melancholic silence. 

eren hesitates which catches your attention. you pull your head from his neck, his hand falling from its place at your nape. you force him to make eye contact while he tries to avoid your gaze.

"what?" you ask, confused about his sudden personality shift.

he nervously rubs the back of his neck before letting out a resigned sigh.

"levi found you," he finally mutters.

oh.

"captain levi found me?" you stupidly repeat.

eren grunts out a small noise of affirmation, still avoiding your eyes.

you let out a sigh, "well that's just fucking perfect".

you'd never actually met captain levi, which was strange considering you'd been on plenty of missions with him. before you'd been elevated to serve under commander erwin, levi had been a figure that most scouts idolized with some kind of reverent wonder. 

it wasn't until he actually became their captain that they realized he was an absolute asshole. 

you considered yourself lucky to not have been assigned to his squad, much preferring the direct command of erwin smith, whose strategies more often than not brought results that no previous commander had ever accomplished.